Low power and Lossy Networks (LLNs), e.g., sensor networks, have a myriad of applications, such as Smart Grid and Smart Cities. Various challenges are presented with LLNs, such as lossy links, low bandwidth, battery operation, low memory and/or processing capability, etc. For example, link capacity is usually extremely limited (e.g., several kbits/s) and time-varying link characteristics can cause a tension between sending additional control messages to quickly adapt to the changing connectivity and sending too much control traffic that adversely affects the data plane traffic and consequently the Service Level Agreement (SLA) of the user traffic. This state can quickly make the network unstable and communications very difficult as a recursive situation of react-and-reconfigure starts to develop because of increasing control traffic and congestion arising from it.
In particular, there are situations where if the control plane traffic is too high (network management, routing, etc.) this may severely impact the user traffic service level. Furthermore, under circumstances where there are user traffic spikes in addition to heavy control plane traffic, this may lead to severe instability in the network. For example, the routing protocol may try to adapt the routing topology, thus leading to more control traffic which may even further impact the user traffic service level, etc., thus causing another form of congestion collapse.